✅ A Dose of Humiliation

33. A Better Choice

Josh was responsible, like he always had been. He refused a drink while he was driving, even if it was only a couple of minutes to school. I kept the flask for myself, and had another little swig to buy me time while I worked out the right way to tell him what I needed to say. Maybe a little more to give me courage, but then I put the cap back on the flask, and told myself that was something I wouldn't normally do. I didn't want to already be tipsy when I arrived at school.

"Reining yourself in this time?" Josh asked, but I didn't see his eyes leave the road ahead.

"Yeah. I'll get another dose of that Punishment Pill if I show up drunk to school."

"Better circle the block a few times," he said. "Get it out of your system. We've got time before classes start, we're still a bit early."

"Yeah. Thanks." I noticed that I was putting the flask to my lips again, a few seconds after I'd said it was enough. But I told myself that was okay, because at least I had noticed it myself.

A little time passed before he spoke again: "You had something to say?" I noticed that we were moving a little away from the school now. Still circling, delaying the moment we'd have to start following the rules.

"Yeah. It's just... it's kind of hard to say. Hard to explain, I mean."

"You don't have to talk about anything you don't want to. We're friends, aren't we? I don't need to know your secrets, unless there's something you really want to show me."

"Yeah. Thanks." I thought back to the time I'd tried that little pink bottle, and he'd been willing to stop even though I knew that I wouldn't have been able to hold myself back. He was a nice guy, even if he did a lot of things that my parents would have hated. And he really didn't want to push me into anything I didn't want to do; he'd shown me that. He didn't think I owed him anything. But maybe in that moment, what I really needed was somebody who would push me to tell him what he needed to know.

"Okay. My parents authorised the teachers to give me a booster shot. I get an extra day of bed– Of that punishment. Every time I skip a class, or if they catch me drinking in school."

"I heard they can do something like that. It's in the rules, they can give teachers permission to do it. But they have to keep a logbook and everything, and they need to prove that it's a rule you've been told about. You could probably tell most of them that the message from your parents was confused, and it's only on repeat offences. Or something like that. They're too scared of using one of those things without getting the permission right. I mean, there's so many rules about what they are and aren't allowed to do."

"I shouldn't," I said. "I mean... I want to play by the rules. Go at this straight. Not do the things they ruled out."

"No drinking in school hours?"

"Yeah. And I'm not going to. Maybe I screwed up on the way this morning. Is anybody going to notice?"

"You're still drinking. And I think by the time it hits your bloodstream, they're bound to notice. But if it's about the punishments... you get one for drinking, and one for being late. Or just one for missing class. I mean, to me that doesn't seem a tough choice."

"Yeah, but... I should stick to the rules."

"Okay, I'll not offer you another drink. But you still should wait before you let the teachers see. By the time what you already drunk hits your system, they'll know right away. And that's the kind of thing they'll call your folks about, turn the whole day into chaos. Better to wait a little, right?"

I knew it was just an excuse, but I couldn't see the problem. And that was when I realised that we weren't actually going to school at all, but he seemed to be parking up somewhere else.